How are the 1G Volts Holding Up?

I know that the new 24kwh battery price is heavily subsidized by Nissan at the moment so $5k is not the true price for one of these batteries.

Ooh, good point. New information changes things.

In reply to Knurled: I tried to find out the life of Battery's in Hybrids and did a lot of calling around to Ford, GM, and Toyota parts department people I knew. Ford who at the time had 12 years experiance with Hybrids had sold only 3 batteries for non accident damage reasons in 12 years.. Toyota had sold 6 and GM none. That's in the Midwest region. Now to be fair this was just with friends I'd done business with over the decades and may not be 100% accurate but it satisfied me that battery replacement wasn't a real issue.

Battery management has improved at least as much as the actual battery chemistry has. You can program a car to make its battery pack last nearly forever (in car terms) if you're willing to mark off a good chunk of its performance envelope as a no-go zone (more likely in hybrids and PHEV than full EV which live or die in sales based on a range number). Another thing that's become common is liquid cooling for battery packs. The 1g Volt has a pretty impressive battery cooling system.

Remember that these batteries don't really "die", even the Leaf's. They lose range. At some point they become unsuitable to the current owner but that doesn't make them paperweights.

I don't know the state of the Leaf but I know in the Tesla world, there's a robust secondary market in the individual modules that make up a battery pack (mostly to hobbyists, I think) and there are a few people who can repair them.

I have a '15 e-golf. I'm expecting it to be nearly worthless by the time it comes off lease. It's a great car but vanishingly rare and the new one goes 50% farther. It will be interesting to see if VW offers it to me for less than the residual ($13k) when the time comes. US Bank made no offer with my '11 Volt.

An e-Golf. That is rare!